These claims and the incident was reported in a local TV program aired in November 2017. It featured how an elderly lady with dementia who was missing for 4 hours was found very quickly. The police narrowed down the radius to 5km and examined all surveillance camera footage in the last 4 hours, hitting a match within 5 seconds. Further matches created a path track and she was physically picked up in 25 mins.

The program also claimed China has the largest public surveillance camera network in the world now, with over 20 million cameras. These cameras are backed by facial recognition systems such as the one made by Yitu Technology and Megvii.

Yitu is a Series C startup which has received US$ 55 million in funding in May 2017. Its heavyweight investors are the likes of Sequoia Capital, Banyan Capital and ZhenFund. It opened its first overseas office in Singapore in January 2018 as its first step towards expanding into the international market.

Megvii’s technology is used by the Ministry of Public Security in China. This Ministry oversees a facial scan database of more than 1.3 billion people in China. It has helped local police to identify and arrest more than 4,000 people since 2016. Megvii’s and its Face++ system made it into CB Insights’ AI Top 100 2017 list.

In China, several banks have also introduced face recognition systems on its ATMs. Users will no longer need to insert an ATM card. They can withdraw money by scanning their faces and entering a PIN. It is also not uncommon in China for workers to gain entry into their offices via a face recognition scanner at the door.

In terms of speed, coverage and accessibility, China’s facial recognition technology is probably ahead of the rest of the world.